1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an audio/data/visual information selection system, and more particularly to a system which filters a stream of audio/data/visual signals, such as television, data or internet-based signals, and provides filtered information, based on user defined parameters, at various levels of content abstraction.
2. Background Information
As the number of television channels increases, a television viewer has a dilemma as to what television shows to watch and how to make the best use of his time while watching television. Since printed and on-screen television listings do not accurately identify the entire content of each television program, many television viewers have taken to “channel surfing” to identify television programs or portions thereof that are “of interest”.
Oftentimes, a television viewer spends a great amount of time channel surfing in the hope of identifying television programs which correspond to his interest. This may cause the viewer to miss many other television programs that he would enjoy watching. For example, if there are commercials that are airing on the “surfed” channels, the viewer will encounter delays in identifying the television program that is being broadcast on the “surfed” channel. Therefore it takes longer to determine whether the program being broadcast is of interest. As a result, programming which may be of interest that is broadcast on other channels will be missed. If the viewer does locate a desirable television program, he often encounters uninteresting commercials that are aired during the show, thereby missing a concurrently aired program of interest that is being broadcast on another channel.
Television viewers are generally tired of the ever-increasing number of television channels that have programming of interest only a portion of the time, the multitude of commercials that are aired during programming, and channel surfing. Therefore, a technique for the scanning, smart selection and/or recording of broadcast television and cable programs and/or information that are of interest to a viewer is essential for the television of the future.
Although there have been recent improvements in digital video processing as is evident by new capture boards and fast processors, relatively little advancement has been made on how the information conveyed by video data can best be recovered, analyzed, classified and delivered according to a viewer's desires.
Systems have recently been developed wherein electronic program guide (EPG) data is analyzed based on viewer information that is provided to the system. Based on the analysis of the EPG data, a list of television programs which may be of interest to the viewer is provided. The EPG data is, however, limited and does not enable different levels of content analysis of every video frame or segment of each television program based on viewer defined parameters.